by JMD Reid
Zori giggled and threw her arms wide. “We’re gonna soar above her so high. Hopefully, Dancer will drop a steaming gift right on her head.”
Chaylene bent over with laughter. “That’s so disgusting, Zori.”
“She’s dung. I doubt she’ll complain.”
When Chaylene regained her composure, she glanced at her small friend. “So, are you scared to fly?”
“Naw,” Zori shrugged. “What’s to be scared of?”
“We’ll be flying.”
“Over the skyland. If anything goes wrong, release your straps and use your Pressure to cushion your fall.”
Unease churned Chaylene’s stomach. She would only have to ditch if something catastrophic happened to Whitesocks. She didn’t want to think about her pegasus getting hurt or worse.
Zori patted her shoulder. “It’ll be fine. People fly pegasi all the time and nothing bad happens. So relax and enjoy yourself. We’re gonna fly, Chaylene. Fly!” The small woman gave a low whoop and jumped, spinning in the air. She landed badly, tangled by Dancer’s bridle, and fell. A fat, black whiskerfish burst out of a tuft of grass and flew off with a panicked flailing of its tail.
Chaylene raised her eyebrows. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Zori laughed then winced. “Though I fell on a rock. Guess I’ll have a sore rear for the ride.”
“Poor you,” Chaylene giggled, holding out her hand. “Next time, let go of your bridle before you decide to be a moon nymph.”
“What?” Zori frowned, taking Chaylene’s hand.
She hauled Zori to her feet. “You know, a moon nymph. Like Eyia, dancing down on the moonbeams before Bronith.”
Zori shook her head.
“Don’t they tell stories where you come from?”
Zori shrugged. “I spent my days grubbing in the streets trying to avoid the workhouses and the brothels. It’s why I joined the Navy. Most of the street urchins was too afraid to even get their Blessing. They think they’ll be shipped off to the workhouses. But my ma always told me to get me a Blessing and join the Navy. That was before she got beat to death by her customer.”
Chaylene winced. “Sorry.”
“No matter. She’s been dead awhile. And that was the only bit of advice she ever gave that was worth an orange. But now I get three big meals. This is the life. And we gets to fly, Chaylene.” Zori jumped again, though she didn’t add the twirl. “I always wanted to fly free as the fish, zipping away from danger. They always look so pretty with their scales flashing as they soar through the sky.” She pointed at a school of silvery fish drifting in a circle to the east.
But there are sharks in the skies, Chaylene wanted to say, noticing the solitary, gray shape above the school.
Their commanding officer waited for them in the field, holding the bridle of Hunter. He gave them all a nod. “We’re not going to do any fancy flying. Yet.” He grinned. “Today is all about getting comfortable with it. But soon, it’ll be like walking or running. You’ll do it without thought. Even landing your pegasus into the back of the Dauntless will seem like it was the easiest thing in the world.”
Chaylene gave a nervous laugh. She’d seen the stern of the Dauntless unfold so the pegasi could enter or leave, an opening barely wider than a pegasus’s wingspan. The rider had to come in precisely or the wings of the pegasus would clip the hull, sending them crashing into the ship’s menagerie or tumbling into the Storm. The Windwardens would help, keeping a bubble of calm air around the ship, and the rider would have her Pressure to give more lift so her pegasus could fly slower, but it was still dangerous.
Chaylene was not looking forward to learning that maneuver.
“Okay. Mount up and remember your training. Just generate the lift and let your pegasus know to fly. It’s all in how you’re sitting, how your knees are pressing into his flanks. They’re well trained, so you’ll be fine as long as you’re confident.”
With a deep breath, she grasped the saddle’s pommel, put her right foot in the stirrup, and pulled herself onto Whitesocks. She’d been on his back many times, learning to ride him on the ground. His wings beat a few times, his hooves stamping the ground, eager. She quickly belted two straps about both thighs, cinched so tight they bit into her flesh. Last, she put on her goggles made of leather and set with glass lenses.
“Soon,” she whispered, stroking his neck. He tossed his mane, whinnying. Well, he’s confident.
“Generate your Pressure.”
She pressed her knees in and Whitesocks extended his wings. She increased the pressure beneath his wings and lowered the pressure above them. The air wanted to rush up, lifting his wings. Her heart thudded, almost drowning out Breston’s words.
“Soar!”
She leaned forward slightly. Whitesocks responded. His wings beat, rocking her saddle. A great whoosh roared around her, winds buffeting her, and then her stomach lurched as they leaped from the ground.
~ * * ~
Ary lunged at Ahneil.
The tall, Agerzak woman lashed out with a punch, stopping Ary’s charge. The pair fought in the loose sand of the sparring arena, their boots kicking of grit. The rest of Detachment One stood in a ring about them, watching their match while the Sergeant-Major strode between Detachment One’s and Detachment Two’s training.
Ary caught her punch with his hand and twisted her wrist. She had strength for a woman, more than Grech or Estan. It combined with her speed. She moved faster than Ary, her body leaner. Her leg lashed out, forcing him back. Crimson darkened her pale face and highlighted her delicate cheekbones. A smile played on her lips. She may have a man’s strength, but she had a woman’s soft features and gentle curves.
“Get her, Ary,” Guts laughed. “Don’t be afraid of those smiles.”
Ary surged forward. In the last month, all the marines had gained proficiency with hand-to-hand combat. They’d learned how to punch, kick, block, grapple, trip, flip, and pin opponents. The Human body was made of levers, places Ary could pivot arms, legs, hips, and shoulders to attack his opponent. Vulnerable joints could be twisted to tear ligaments, dislocate bones, or break them entirely.
“Battle isn’t fair,” the Sergeant-Major had bellowed on their first day in the sparring arena. “It isn’t sportsmanlike. This isn’t a gentleman’s duel or a drunken brawl. You are killing your opponent. And you need to do that as quick as possible. Go for the vulnerable spots on a body. Inflict the maximum amount of pain and injury with the least amount of effort.”
Ahneil caught Ary’s forearm. As she tried to bend his wrist joint, he swept his leg into hers. He hooked her calf and turned his waist. He used his hip as leverage to pivot and throw her onto her back. She gasped and coughed on the sand. Ary fell upon her with the same motion, putting his knee into her stomach and his fist at her throat. In a real battle, he’d punch her throat with all his force, crushing the windpipe and discharging his Lightning.
Today, they sparred.
“Didn’t think you’d sweep my leg,” she coughed as he helped her to her feet. Her fingers were calloused from hard labor, but slim and light, almost caressing his hand before she let go. “I’ll get you next time.” Her smile grew broader, no longer just friendly, but almost . . . promising.
Heat flushed through Ary.
“You did good. You kept me off-balance for a while. Just keep fighting with that fierceness.”
She beamed at him.
Ary smiled back until he felt the Sergeant-Major’s eyes itching between his shoulder blades. His grin faded. He stepped out the ring, saying, “Guts, Estan, come on, you’re up next.”
Estan and Guts took to the ring. The marines would spar with every possible combination of opponents. Though quick, Estan found it impossible to defeat Guts’s sheer bulk. Even Ary had trouble fighting the big man. With yells and grunts, the pair sparred. Ary studied their moves. After the session, they would critique each other.
A shadow fell across his face.
Ary glanced up and smiled. His wife winged across the
horizon. Chaylene had talked his ear off late into last night, excited for her first flight. Her light-blue coat flapped behind her as her pegasus climbed into the sky. He waved at her.
“Ary,” Ahneil whispered, stepping closer to him. “I . . . um . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve heard . . . things about your wife. And, I . . . well . . .”
“That she cuckolded me on the voyage here?” Ary asked, his voice growing grave.
Her cheeks brightened pink. “Yeah. Xoshia and Zeirie were talking about it last week. Xoshia claimed to see them disappear into the hold for awhile.”
“Xoshia is a lying sack of dung! I’ve heard the talk. She’s just jealous. I saw her giving Vel sow’s eyes the entire trip. But my wife never did anything with Vel. She hardly left my side on the voyage. Besides, he’s my friend. We grew up together. He wouldn’t ever do anything like that.”
It had angered him the first time he’d heard the rumor. Xoshia laughed about it in the mess hall with a group of sailors. But he knew the woman just gusted storm winds. He harbored no doubts about his wife’s, or his friend’s, fidelity.
“She loves me. She would never give me a set of horns.”
“If you say so. But, I mean, women can be . . . duplicitous. And you say this Vel’s your friend, but why don’t I ever see you two together?”
Ary blinked, realizing he hadn’t seen much of Vel, just spotting him here and there. “We’re training. He’s on a different ship, got his own crew to bond with. Not much time for socializing.”
“Even on Dawnsday?” Ahneil asked, arching an eyebrow.
“Well, Chaylene and I spend it together. And we talk with Estan or . . .” He frowned. “Maybe he’s met a girl. That’d fill his time.”
Ahneil’s hand touched his wrist, her fingers tender despite her rough callouses. A look, almost like pity, filled her expression. “I’ll be more than willing to listen.”
“Thanks for the offer,” Ary frowned, confused by the molasses, thick and sugary, that had crept into her voice. “But she wouldn’t. You can tell Xoshia and Zeirie and the rest to stop spreading foul air before Chaylene hears. My wife and her friends just might give those sows another drubbing.”
Why has Vel been avoiding me? he wondered.
~ * * ~
Excited fear surged like ice through Chaylene’s body as Whitesocks took off into the sky. Her skin pimpled as they flew higher and higher, banking and climbing in a spiral, the straps holding her tight onto the saddle. The ground dropped away as they rose. The trees looked like bushes, the buildings like doll houses, and the people scurried like bugs, even her husband.
Chaylene returned Ary’s wave as he stood at the sparring sands.
She gave a whooping laugh. She’d always wanted to fly, to soar through the skies, and though she hadn’t received Major Wind and couldn’t fly all on her own, this was the next best thing. Her hair whipped behind her and she leaned over Whitesocks’s neck, his black mane tickling her face. He responded, beating his wings faster and propelling them forward. The ground raced below, grassy fields undulating with the hidden folds in the ground, giving way to the barley fields that lay to the west of the village of Shon.
This was such freedom. She wanted to fly forever. To see what lay over the horizon, what new sights she could witness from the air. It would be amazing. Exploring, discovering new wonders, seeing the places where history was made. There was no place she couldn’t go on Whitesocks’s back. The entire skies lay out before her, endless possibilities.
But she wasn’t free. She served in the Navy. She sighed, realizing she’d flown too far away. Here, beyond the Navy’s preview, she pondered their future. In little under four years, they’d be free of the Navy. And what would they do? Go back to horrid Vesche? Be farmers, confined to that little skyland with the goodwives?
They had the entire skies to find a new place, a better place, to tend their family.
Something gleamed on the horizon. Curiosity sparked in her, and she heeled Whitesocks. It grew larger as she sped towards it, rising over the farmland of southern Les like a branchless pine tree. It was a spire of crystal towering into the air, sunlight reflecting off its faceted faces.
“The Dawnspire of Les,” she whispered, banking Whitesocks to circle it, staring in awe at the strange artifact.
Only a dozen Dawnspires, also called Sky Towers or Crystal Rays, existed in the whole of the skies, remnants of the mighty Dawn Empire. This Dawnspire thrust out of the soil of Les, its foundations sunk into the depths of the skyland. Light flickered in its crystalline depths, flashing like lightning.
She circled it, feeling like an infant before the ancient artifact. She wanted to land and touch it. The legends said you had good luck for a thousand days if you touched a Dawnspire and felt its humming warmth.
But I can’t. I should be heading back. I probably shouldn’t have come out this far.
She shifted her weight. Whitesocks banked, turning back to Camp Chubris. She promised herself to come back and touch it one day.
I’ll bring Ary along. His face will light up in that boyish way. She remembered him gawking at Marriage Day fireworks, and was eager to see that same innocent joy on his face again.
Chaylene flew for a quarter hour when Zori appeared, banking towards her and flashing the “good job” signal, a simple thumbs up. Chaylene laughed and answered with the simple hand signs they’d memorized.
“Quick,” Zori signed then pointed back to camp.
A race. Chaylene grinned, signaling “affirmative.” It was the same signal as “good job.”
Zori held up three fingers, then two, then one.
Chaylene leaned over Whitesocks, pressing her heels into his flanks. His wings beat, strong and steady, churning the air and propelling them faster. Zori soared right along beside her, the small woman almost pressed against Dancer’s neck, his mane whipping in her face.
“You can beat her, Whitesocks!” Chaylene screamed. “Come on!”
His wings beat faster. Camp Chubris and the field raced up, the ground a blur beneath them as they flew their pegasi across the skies. They soared past Velegrin on Blackfeather. The camp flitted by, and Chaylene caught a blur of red coats. She laughed as she flew over her husband. Ahead, the field where they’d taken off hurtled closer.
But Zori kept pace.
“We can do it! I believe in you!”
She directed Whitesocks to dive for the ground, sending Pressure to generate more lift for her mount as she killed their speed to land.
~ * * ~
“So, did you win?” Ary asked as he lay in bed with his wife, excited to hear the results. They lay on their sides, her head pillowed on his arm. He loved the delight in Chaylene’s eyes as she told the story of her first flight. For once, he didn’t complain about the Sergeant-Major. Ary couldn’t dampen her excitement.
“What do you think?” Chaylene asked.
“That you blew the feathers off her pegasus.”
She sighed, her delight vanishing. “I lost.”
“I’m sorry.” He leaned in to give her a kiss. That returned the delight in her eyes.
“Well, she is so tiny and must weigh at least a dozen bones less than me.”
“An unfair advantage,” he agreed, then gave his wife a second kiss.
“Is this my consolation prize?”
“Yep,” he whispered, stroking her cheek. Then he kissed her again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Coajyoa 19th, 399 VF (1960 SR)
That night, a dream blossomed in his mind.
A child-Ary fished on the skyland, laughing as a silvery trout nibbled at his floating bait. Child-Vel sat next to him, chortling with delight as Ary landed his fish. Vel’s fingers grabbed the line, pulling in the squirming catch.
“Almost as big as the one I hooked!” Vel said.
A wind gusted, whipping the boys’ hair. A perfect summer day away from his ma.
The void engulfed the nonsense of hi
s regular dream.
Darkness consumed the skyland’s bluff. The vibrant grass wavered away, and Vel’s laughing face billowed like smoke driven by the wind. Ary became a man grown, his mind coming awake to his reality.
He hung in nothingness, disembodied. The chain flashed into appearance, staining his vision with a blue afterimage. It pulsed and hummed, crackling with agony. He sighed, his frustration mounting at the dream.
“What do you mean?” he screamed at the chain. At the dream.
Neither answered him.
Ary hurtled through the void, skimming along the chain of pulsing light. He hated it. His stomach clenched as vertigo tumbled through his non-body. The strange Luastria appeared as a speck on the horizon then ballooned to engulf Ary’s vision.
Either he soared to the Luastria, or she was pulled to Ary.
“The pain,” she sang. “It burns!”
Will I get answers this time?
~ * * ~
Wriavia’s feet landed on the cool grass outside Briaris’s cottage. His head cocked as his ears strained for muffled footsteps. His every feather stood rigid. One recruit taking a wrong turn to the latrine or strolling through the camp on a sleepless night could spot him. He must not be seen. The fire must appear accidental.
The Church’s feathers must remain spotless.
Wriavia’s distal feathers gripped Briaris’s window, which was already open a crack. He took care not to disturb the red daisy left by the watcher. The window scraped and groaned against its wooden frame. His gizzard tightened with every sound. In the still night, the noise seemed as loud as a flock of gulls.
“How do I free you?” Briaris moaned.
Wriavia froze, not daring to breathe.
The bed creaked. Briaris stirred.
Lanii’s golden feathers, why is he awake? Wriavia assessed the situation, his body tensing to flee. He could set the fire another night.
“It hurts too much,” Briaris cried out. “I can’t!”
Wriavia’s head cocked. He wanted to push the curtains open and peer into the room. Briaris mumbled feverishly. Is he crying out in his dreams?
“How did she betray you?”